Papa Can't Preach
by RedSkyNight
Summary: It takes more than time for hurts to heal.
1. Meet Nasty and Hopeful

**Summary**:_ It takes more than time for hurts to heal._

_A/N: 30 minutes. I was feeling for some drama, one sleepless night. Thanks to all who fav'd Cuchi-Cuchi-Coo! There's a poll about what story I should put up next, on my profile. Drop by and tell me what you think about the ideas. __My ideas and official A/N on this piece are also written on my profile in the section for this story._

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___**Papa Can't Preach**_

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The sun that isn't there isn't not shining, so he feels it's safe to call it a sunny day. Maybe it'll even be a good one.

A good day is when he finds out that he hasn't stumbled into international crisis half-blind and with his arms crossed and good leg cramping, partaken in a completely non-verbal meeting with his son and come out feeling like a complete jerk and victim at the same time, or lost the matching sock somewhere between the journey from the bathroom to his bed.

Laguna realizes that he may have some strange standards for what constitutes a good day, certainly he's not so foolish as to believe otherwise, but he feels he's entitled to some of it. Or, at least he hopes he is.

But looking into the eyes of his son, sharper and far bluer than they had seemed during their last meeting a couple days ago (where he tried to not retreat like a complete coward while thanking Cosmos for some of the missing issues), he thinks that maybe it has a great chance to become a bad one.

Maybe.

Just a little.

"I see you're having fun."_ Found my name familiar, didn't you? Lots of Squalls around here, where there's about 20 of us tops. Thought you could pretend and my memories wouldn't come back, right, and escape from whatever this is without bothering to warn me? _Is what he can read shooting out of his eyes, in the lean on his left-foot, and the wrinkle of his scar.

Having learned his son's silent language after many, many attempts at communication and frequent lack thereof (and a bit of experience with Ward's condition) have left Laguna a complete and total appreciation for those who still don't understand it. It's sarcastic, bitter, and often pokes at everything everyone else keeps in their heads. In Squall's mind, however, his thoughts seem to have a bit more power, and if you bother looking closely, the thoughts you thought you could bury come hurtling out of their hiding places, as if commanded by their master, the Grandmaster of Bitter. All with some sharp commentary driven by a mind disillusioned with practically everything. Laguna's lived longer than Squall, and isn't half as much jaded as the boy who is less than half his age.

And in this world, everything seems a bit amplified, and looking at Squall, he can almost see the thoughts forming around him. Or maybe Laguna was projecting his thoughts onto him. He was never really sure with him.

"Ah-I thought, with everything and all you'd want some space-" Now, Laguna hadn't been trying to escape his temporary-amnesiac of a son, no matter how quickly he departed from the teen the moment he had determined his condition.

He hadn't.

It had been a quick retreat to gather his thoughts, and maybe earn some brownie points with a kid who seemed less capable, far less intimidating than his son with all his memories. Maybe save him, look like a hero...or at least seem like a respectable, reliable adult for at least a little while, and hope to Hyne that a little of it would cause some sort of a breakthrough in their relationship. Because _nothing else_ was working.

It wasn't brainwashing or anything. Just a little much-needed, prayed-for, greatly-sought-after encouragement.

_That you could abandon me again?_ It appears as it often does, gradually and delicately, draped around his leather-covered form like a veil of ice from his beloved Shiva. Laguna saw this one before, when he'd been invited to a little meeting between Elle and him, thinking that maybe everything could work out with all of them (not _her_ of course) together again. "I thought you were all about_ sticking-together_ and _friendship_." He was summarily proved wrong, and a bit disturbed by how everything had gone wrong in the situation with Squall. How all the bad of the situation seemed to have centered on his life and affected him so much.

It was utterly unsettling to realize this, and sometimes made the snarling lion act that much more easier to accept.

"No," Laguna begins sheepishly, combing his hair with a hand and trying out a weak smile to diffuse the _Ultima_ he swore was building up beneath them both, or maybe just his feet. He'd learned this maneuver in Esthar, behind his desk and looking at people whose black hearts would have brought the city he loved to its knees if not appeased. And, _Hyne-be-damned_, he had to use it on _his _son. "I was just…"_ Trying to make it better_. _Trying to do something, anything to make you stop doing this to yourself- to us._

_See_? He could do it too. Like father, and ever-raging son.

There's a pause, and the sound of Squall's leather gloves gripping onto the gunblade in his right hand as he tilts his head to swipe a rogue strand of hair off his face. He looked like her sometimes, when his thoughts took him elsewhere. And that gives him hope.

_Is there anything else we could do? Anything to make this better?_

And Squall turns away.

Maybe this _wasn't_ going to be a good day.

And Laguna moves, slowly, marching in time to a quiet, personal dirge, as he follows the back of his son through the broken world and beyond. To the future.

But he _wasn't_ going to give it up.


	2. Bestial

**Summary**:_ It takes more than time for hurts to heal._

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_**Papa Can't Preach**_

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His first waking moments are something of a blur.

His thoughts run through his head like water, and he can't grasp any at first until he grits his teeth and contains it all with a strength and a skill that seems far too familiar to be fortuitous, to be an accident. Something about memories and withstanding time . There are some things that are carved into the bone of one's being, and those two things, not entirely wholly different, are things that don't leave those they have bled and marked so easily. He can sense empty wells where memories once dwelled, and if he thinks on it, he can catch a scent or a flicker of an image. A roar?

And this is the only understanding he has when he opens his eyes and wonders why he can't catch the scent of the sea in the 't hear certain voices or feel warmth around him that he feels he is missing. _I think therefore I am_. And there is his second.

His clothing is snug and worn, and he knows he's a warrior when he holds the sword -_blade-gun...gunblade?_- and doesn't topple over from the weight. It's in the bearing of his body, ready even when his mind isn't, and in the faint stirrings of panic locked-down, reprimanded, and buried so easily without a thought._ It won't help. It never helps. So why bother?_

He hears a voice on the wind, chilly, and despairs for a minute that they are so far apart, before just standing and taking in the world around him, dark and throbbing like a dark, broken heart. He doesn't want to be here, particularly like being here, but he swallows the discomfort and moves forward. _Carry on_ _like a good little soldier. Never show fear. Never turn back._

"SQUALL!-" He hears something, and cocks his head to the side, sure that he hears the noise of thundering footsteps, boots slapping against the cobbled stone floor of the castle he has found himself in. They quicken and stagger at odd intervals, faster and faster, until the whole chamber is echoing with the force of the blows, and the tension of something else building up in the air._ Above_, he jerk his eyes upward and sees a man leap from a higher level of the winding staircase, _someone is coming._

The man kneels for a moment, having met the ground with a grace that reveals a similar warrior status, and the man catches a breath, face tilted downward, but something in his heart shifts._ I know this person. Will he tell me who I am?_

He remains silent, giving the man time to breathe and gather himself up into a more approachable figure. _Why would I not want that?_ He stands, patient as a river flows, and his fingers dig into the sleeves of his jacket as his crossed arms tense and ache with the growing need to reach his sword. _I don't want him near me. Why do I think he will hurt me?_

He meets the green eyes of the man, who has a boyish face, that mentally knocks years off to a casual observer, but which probably belongs to someone who is middle-aged. He's more observant and catches the slight wrinkles, the laugh lines that line the face almost invisibly, telling their secrets out loud to the world to those who will listen. The eyes look at him, look at him like they know of him if not about him. _I don't want him to be my enemy._ But those eyes tell him something else. _Why does he think I'll hurt him?_

He understands why the man would fear him in the next seconds that arrive and become normality before he can realize that they shouldn't be. It's a sudden moment that has passed, and he wants to_ crush_ something, _tear it apart_ and _destroy it_ before it becomes anything that can drag him down. Before it can come near him. And he realizes that this cannot be anything but deep, all-encompassing fear that borders on phobia.

"Do I know you?" He finally lets out, his tone even, even as his mental-self starts throwing things against the metaphorical wall because of something he doesn't yet remember. _Something about you has me on edge. Something tells me not to get involved. Why? What did you do to me?_

"Squall,"_ So I do have a name_, "don't tell me we're back to that again. I know this is hard but-" Something must have given him away, or in the very least, alerted some sort of sense that something in this was wrong. _Does he feel this too?_

"You don't remember, _anything_?" There's an odd tone in the man's voice that he can't quite identify, something nearly desperate but not. Something shocked, hurt maybe...but there is guilt mixed in there. _What is this? You can feel it too, whoever you are, right? What are you to me?_

"No," He shakes his head, a faint strand of brown hair slipping from its place behind his ear. "I don't remember anything." _Why does he seem so happy?_ _Why would anyone be happy about this?_ Something in him is waking up, agreeing with the broken shards of glass in his mind, and it is not happy. It is a being born of possessiveness and defense, keeping what can be kept with claws and jaws and growling, growing ferocity and held without hurting, and rejecting all else without impunity. _This man, whoever he is, is not to be held. Not to be kept close. I would hurt if he was._ It roars and prepares to lunge, teeth sharp and bared. A lion cornered.

"Who are _you_?" The man jerks, shaking his head slowly as he looks at him with a spark in his eyes that doesn't make him comfortable. _That look doesn't belong._ Mumbling to himself, the man takes a short step back, looking at him so incredibly conflicted, it's a wonder he hasn't torn himself apart. "Who are _you_?" He repeats.

"I'm-no one, " the man tells, as if imparting a great and terrible secret. The look in his eyes says he believes this, at least in part. "No one, and I must be mistaken. I thought you were someone else." The man smiles a politician's smile, a genuine smile that lacks one vital ingredient or other to make it absolute truth. It makes it seem as brittle as glass. "But, I'll be back soon, okay? I just need to check on some of my potions' stock or we'll be in a bad way when he finally get into fight."

And a shred of glowing, growing light falls on the facts, cold and simple and so incredibly raw that he almost can't take it. It falls softly, like it only does with him, like _Diamond Dust_. Something takes a shovel to the dirt, and tosses all it all into the air, filling it with clouds of dust. A chill spikes through him comforting like a hug before withdrawing, and he closes his eyes, protecting himself from the outside since he can't from the inside, and slowly becomes himself, as the footsteps that arrived just a short while ago, disappear into the distance just as quickly.

_Laguna. _That_ man._

_I don't want him near-_

_He left._

_He won't come back._

_...They don't._

He opens his eyes, looks up at the stars, and starts counting until they blur together and he can't force himself to look at the mockeries of his favorite sight. _The moon is missing. We couldn't dance here-_

"My name is Squall Leonhart," Squall says to himself, loudly and not a little proud. There is no one here to see his odd change in character. It is safe to do this here, affirm what needs to be affirmed. "And I will-" His voice fades, as he whispers promises to himself with only Griever, who guards his heart and all that he is, to witness it.

He makes to say something else, but his voice dies in his throat, before anything more can be born. _There's nothing more to be said._ Anything else would cheapen it. This. That promise he made to himself.

He's only been given one reason to change it before, but that was it. It is it.

When he learned that he couldn't operate on his own in the world that was the one outside the one he made in his own mind. He's made concessions, yes. But that is all.

A few people, those whose histories were undoubtedly entangled with his own, and that one whose future he hopes will intersect forevermore with his own. He's fine on his own here, without them. He has them in his heart, and he needs no others. He will find his way back to them. No one else.

Squall looks into the emptiness of the world, all beaten and broken and somehow undeniably beautiful despite the epic war being waged across his surface, and familiar, and he walks forward into the unknown.

_I don't need him._

The lion retreats, and curls into itself, asleep and calm as a quiet night.

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_**A/N:** A bit from Squall, his side of the story. Everything is a bit instinctual with him in this situation, bordering on bestial. I feel that even after Rinoa and everything, he'd still be reserved with his affections and feelings. Just that he let in the people he considered "family" and was looser with people around him. Laguna's too close to fast._


	3. Methodology and Consequence

Summary: It takes more than time for hurts to heal.

A/N: Hey, y'all. College got the best of me, and so I lost a couple of plots, but I am in the process of getting back into them.

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**Methodology and Consequence...**

Have never differed so much between two connected people

Squall, in a surprising contradiction to his own, apparent, everlasting duty to efficiency, is a person who takes his time.

Perhaps by reconfiguring the thought to make it flow with what Squall is rather than what he should be, it should be related that he likes to stalk and hunt his target before actually going in and committing the kill. An efficiency in its own way. Dedication, fascination, participation. He seems to put his life into the mission, and every little interval in time not focused on the ever-present mission becomes a dreaded break of nothingness, a hellish waiting room before the doors to Hell (or is it Heaven?).

He is a person born and bred to fight.

Laguna, a self-admitted lazybones, cool with just breathing the air and seeing the sights, is somewhat, almost frighteningly, far more apt to end a battle before it starts. He is likely to throw a disproportionate amount of grenades in the face of the enemy, or pull the trigger like he has a grudge just waiting to be satisfied. He has no hesitation, no doubts, just puts an end to what he wants finished, and that is that. The doubts come afterward, when reason returns and the rush fades. He is a person who feels before he thinks, and this has made him who he is.

It makes a person wonder why one is the military man while the other is the president, but then you'd get stuck on how Fate likes to fuck with the interesting ones, and leave it at that.

These differences, between the slow walker and the fast talker, are possibly the reason their relationship was fated to fail from Day One.

But there is always room for compromise, and while Fate may exist (as Squall and his paradox can attest), it is not always nonnegotiable.

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A/N: So here's another hope chapter, because looking back, it looks really bleak. Sorry for it being so short. And, it's also a nod to my play style with both in Duodecim, though I do love to spam combos with Squall occasionally.


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